In Lord Iblis's Secret Service
by Batsojopo
Summary: Sometimes when everything goes bad in your life, it gets better in the weirdest way possible. Kind of a play on RDM’s “everyone gets what they want in the worst possible way” comment. This is a collaborative effort with Rap541, and also a BSG/SGC xover.
1. The Destroyer of the Gods

**In Lord Iblis's Secret Service**

Part: 1

Rating: PG, maybe be PG-13 later on  
paring: ensemble cast  
Summary: Sometimes when everything goes bad in your life, it gets better in the weirdest way possible. Kind of a play on RDM's "everyone gets what they want in the worst possible way" comment.

Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and its characters are creations of Glen Larson and copywrited by Universal Studios. Stargate and its characters are creations of MGM. We make no money off this.

_**The Destroyer of the Gods**_

"Explain her duties to her," the Jaffa said as he shoved her into the barred cell. "This one had better please… There will be a ceremony tomorrow and Lord Iblis wants you presentable."

The cell door clanged and Sam Carter pulled herself up to a seated position. From the outside the cell looked like a typical Goa'ld dungeon cell. Stone walls, metal bars… they were fairly unoriginal with their planetary fortresses. But a few quick glances betrayed some subtle differences. It was brightly lit. There was a stone doorway that led deeper into the mountain and she could see the nice if not opulent furniture of living quarters. At the same time she could some very high tech features. There appeared to be some sort of drop down clear glass door built in to the cell. And there was a man there, a young man in the typical cotton pants and desert dweller long tunic of P23D12. Probably not a native resident though, she though as she looked him over. The villagers she had been mingling with when the Jaffa had come were very fair humans, blonde and red haired with blue eyes. They were very Nordic looking, truth be told, both the men and women were tall and heavily built. She had been on the short side for a woman with them. The man in the cell with her, while certainly not short by her standards, would be unusually small and slight compared to the natives of Andelia. He was also unusually dark skinned, somewhere between the olive tone of a Mediterrean dweller and the amber skin of a South east Asian. Too delicate and fine skinned for a middle easterner, and too curly haired for an Asian,he looked like a young Egyptian noble. And there's a ceremony tomorrow, Sam thought sadly, which means the poor fellow is probably here to be a host for a Gou'ld youngling. Pretty hosts were cherished. She smiled slightly. "Hi…um…"

"Are you from one of the local villages?" He held out his hand to her, and she took it. His hands were soft, which was another point that made him unlikely to be a native. He didn't smile as she stood. "Was there a contest? Did you win the honor of serving Lord Iblis?"

"No… I was at a festival." In native garb, and she was already thanking God that the Jaffa had barely searched her. She had a location transponder in her peasant dress. Colonel O'Neill, Daniel, and Teal'c likely already knew she was within the Goa'ld fortress. "They grabbed all the women and said I had to come. To serve the destroyer of gods."

Which was interesting. They had heard system lord scuttlebutt about destroyers of the gods, but it appeared to be nothing more than a legend. The Tok'ra were closed mouthed about it, even her father said it wasn't something that could be discussed.

The man smiled slightly. "Destroyer of gods…. It's nice to have a title." Then he sighed. "I'm sorry. If there's a ceremony tomorrow, I don't have a lot of time to get you up to speed."

"You're the destroyer of gods?" She wondered if the slight young man was mocking her, but she quickly shook it off as he nodded. She was locked in a cell with him, and she had learned early in her time in SG-1 that appearances could be deceiving.

"It's not as exciting as it sounds," he said softly. "So you must be a traveler, from one of the far away villages?"

"I… yes…" That was technically her cover story, and for all she knew he was a plant. And if he wasn't a plant, there was still a good chance that he was dangerous. She had no idea what being a destroyer of gods meant but it didn't sound safe. And she was locked in a cell with him. Best to stick to the cover story. " I was with some friends, we were trading, and they don't even know where I am."

"I'm sorry," the man said gently. "I know when you're chosen by contest, your family gets word from Lord Iblis's minions." He hesitated, and Sam got the impression he was both sad and annoyed. "Did they tell you anything?"

"Just what you heard," and she suddenly wished she wasn't wearing the native dress she had on. It had the transponder but it also was long and would make it difficult to run. Not that there was anywhere to go.

"Well, then I should explain." His expression seemed to change subtly, and she made note of it. He had the tone similar to her father's when he was being stern. He gestured to himself. "Your role is to serve me. I won't make your job more difficult than it needs to be, but I do have to warn you, the Jaffa are very strict and Lord Iblis is easily displeased." He gestured around the cell. "This is where I live. I'm not allowed to leave here ever. You will be allowed to go back and forth with supplies. The Jaffa guards will always be present, and any time you're allowed out, I will be locked in there before hand." He waved her over to the stone doorway, and pointed to a similar plexiglass and steel barred door built into the wall. "It's pretty secure. Once you're comfortable, I'll ask the guards to demonstrate it so you won't be frightened tomorrow."

"And this?" she asked as she stepped through the door. The technology was something she would examine later. She was suddenly curious about what Iblis was really up to. Goa'uld rarely kept prisoners alive, let alone gave them nicely furnished living quarters. There was a table, and some cabinets and sink as a sort of kitchenette, and a large comfortable sofa and chair with lamps and end tables. She could see a large bed tucked into an alcove and another door that appeared to be a clothes closet. In one corner of the large living room was a hanging punching bag, and the walls were covered with scrawled math equations. He was using the stone wall as a black board and she knew high level math when she saw it. Not a native then, she decided as she masked her surprise. Be careful, she added.

"This is where I live. This is where you will live." He led her over to the small table and had her sit down. "I'm sorry to be… harsh about this, but you are a prisoner here. Lord Iblis values me as a threat to the other gods. I won't complain about you but the guards will report you if you aren't quick about your duties, if you seem angry, or if they think you're trying to escape." He took a deep breath. "I have to tell you a lot of things that you may find blasphemous or upsetting. About Lord Iblis, the Jaffa, the other …. gods…. About what is expected of you."

"Why don't you start with the blasphemy?" Sam said.

"Lord Iblis is not a god. Not in the sense you think." The young man placed his hand on top of hers, and Sam was struck by how gentle he was trying to be. "There is a creature… it's difficult to describe, that's inside Lord Iblis and his rival gods. It is the one in control. The man you see walking around is just the host, and he's trapped because the god is using him. They occasionally choose new human hosts. I know this because Lord Iblis's partner Lilith chose me to be her new host." His voice shook just a little. "I felt it enter me….it was so cold and I could feel her in me, taking control from me, laughing at me." He looked at her intently. "And then I felt it panic. I saw Iblis panic and it was crawling all over inside me and Iblis was screaming at me, and Lilith was inside me, using me to scream back at him that she was trapped. After three days, it finally died inside of me. It… tore me up inside… I just figured I was going to die. But Iblis has this device… it's like magic but it's not. He calls it a sarcophagus. He put me in it…. And that was torture because I couldn't move and I could feel my insides healing and it hurt and it seemed like it would never ever end." He shook slightly and then rubbed her hand. "That's why I am the destroyer of gods. Lord Iblis is going to bring another one of his kind here. He's going to offer me as a host and when the god enters me, it will be trapped and it will die."

He was expecting her to be upset, that was obvious. No doubt the average village girl didn't handle having the reality of the Goa'uld laid out for them. The people of Andelia were fairly innocent herders and farmers who considered Iblis a benevolent god that protected them. And his words, about the contest, tickled something in her memory. The chief of the local village the Stargate was centered around, just outside the fortress, had mentioned that the young women were looking forward to a contest. It wasn't hard to fake surprise though. The young man was describing a horrific scenario, one that he had apparently replayed several times. It also explained why Iblis was slowly but surely climbing the ladder among the system lords. One of the reasons they were on Andelia was to see what had been going on and how Iblis was accomplishing it when his original territory had been fairly devoid of resources. He and Lilith had been very low in the pecking order and then about ten years ago Lilith had been mysteriously killed and Iblis had started to become a threat. Now he was in the middle of the pack and Sam realized she was looking at the main reason why.

The destroyer of gods.

"That… is upsetting but I had heard stories…" she said after a long moment. It was lucky she was in native garb. The young man seemed prepared to accept her as an innocent victim of Iblis. He clearly wasn't a native, and she needed to know more about him. She also needed to know why she was there. "What else is required of me?"

"You're here to take care of me, particularly when Lord Iblis is using me." He shrugged. "Technically you are supposed to follow my orders. Frankly, I'm not a god, or chosen by the gods, I'm just a man, and worse, I'm actually more of a prisoner here than you, but until you learn how things are, I recommend that you do as I say." His voice edged into that tone again, and she began to wonder what his background was. "Beyond the issue of god killing, where you're basically taking care of me like a child, you're here to be my companion and entertainment. Which is always hilarious." He chuckled suddenly, and Sam got the impression he wasn't quite as cool or collected as he was acting. "You're here so I don't go crazy, and so Iblis has someone he can use to keep me in line."

That was nicely ominous, Sam thought, but it was definitely a Goa'uld tactic. "What happens if I don't do what you say?"

"You seem smart," he said after a moment. "So I think I can be blunt. There's been a lot of women brought here. If they start screaming and can't take it, they get removed by the Jaffa. If they refuse to be useful, they get removed. I don't know what happens to them, but I know that a lot of them come from the nearby villages, and the new women always say that no one ever comes back."

"What about escape?" Samantha asked. He seemed bright and more sophisticated than many of those that the Goa'uld oppressed.

The question made him smile more, but it was a sad look. " I thought I'd like you," he said easily, "but please consider the risks. I've tried it many times, both with companions and alone and I've never made it out of the fortress. As far as I know, none of the women made it either. I used to try it a lot, but ultimately I ended up being tortured for days as punishment, and then thrown in the sarcophagus. Which is also days of torture. And every time I try, this prison becomes more and more inescapable. You'll see. The guards aren't even allowed into the cell unless I'm shackled to the wall. That's one of your jobs by the way, and they will kill you if you don't do it." He sighed. "I'm sorry, but escape is impossible. And you will be killed if you try."

"What about you?" She wondered.

"I am Lord Iblis's pet. The Jaffa know that he would skin them alive for seriously harming me. One time…. One of them shot me with one of those staffs…. I think I might have died. I woke up screaming in that damn box…. It went on for what seemed like years. But as soon as I was alive and well, I got to sit in on the day long execution. I'm valuable to Iblis. You…. He'll wait a week or so and I'll be doing this speech again." He leaned back in his chair. "What's your name?"

"I'm Samantha. What's your name and how long have you been here?" He looked perhaps twenty six but she knew that the Goa'ld Lilith had been dead for years. And if he was routinely using a sarcophagus for healing, it was possible he was much older than he looked.

He smiled again. "I'm Felix Gaeta… and I have no idea how long I've been here. There's been lot of pretty female companions like you, if that helps. This is not a safe job."

* * *

He felt like crap. He always felt like crap after a session in the sarcophagus. The Goa'ald had been tougher than most. He wasn't sure how long he had been out of control but it had been longer than usual.

He thought anyway. Time had just stopped… making sense to him a long time ago. He had been captured by the Jaffa and taken through the ring to their gods Iblis and Lilith and time had stopped for him. Was it five years? Or fifty? He didn't know. A look in the mirror always showed him the same sight, a man who looked twenty seven. There had been gray hair before. He remembered it, spotting it while he was living on New Caprica and putting it down to stress.

And he had two feet again. He supposed he should be grateful. He wiggled his toes. It was nice to have ten toes. But that momentary pleasure faded as the Jaffa guards lifted him out of the sarcophagus and carefully dragged him down the long stone hallway back to his cell. He had a good memory, and he knew the layout. Down the way was the laundry, and the food stores were to the left and up a stair well. He always tried to look and make sure that things hadn't changed significantly since his last time out of the cell.

It was an officer's duty to escape, after all. He had tried and failed many times, but he couldn't not look at the surroundings. The changes were minimal, new guards were the only change although he was grateful that they weren't as rough as normal. He had been dragged into his cell and propped into a seated position by a grey haired Jaffa he didn't recognize, but he wasn't planning on complaining. The Jaffa guards didn't dislike him for the most part. They respected his power, and he made a point of not complaining, but they were simply too alien. Too afraid. And they were ruled by their love of the gods.

He flexed his muscles. He felt weak. The truth was that he hadn't felt physically strong in so long, he didn't know what it really felt like to be well. The sarcophagus healed the injuries caused, he wouldn't have two legs if it didn't, he wouldn't be alive if it didn't heal, but he felt so awful afterward…. He hated how it made him feel. He usually didn't regain his equilibrium for a day or two, and that meant the woman Iblis chose had to help him. That was particularly humiliating especially if they were innocent. The new one seemed a little more worldly.

She was waiting by the steel enforced glass door, looking concerned. As soon as the door slid open she rushed to his side. "Are you all right?" she asked, as she tugged at the chains he was in.

"Keys… Jaffa… Keys…" he muttered. She nodded with understanding, and he wondered again where she was from. Not from the villages, that was obvious. They were usually blonde, and Iblis and his minions generally didn't pick women who were taller than he was, but Samantha seemed different from the women who usually ended up serving him. She didn't hesitate to go to the Jaffa guards and that was definitely unusual, and she was back at his side in seconds, removing the chains and shackles he was required to be in whenever he left the cell. She returned the shackles and keys to the guards and in seconds was at his side.

"Are you all right?" she asked as she knelt down beside him. "What do you need?"

She meant well, and he bit back a foul comment. " The couch… something soft…. I need help up." After the sarcophagus, he was well, he couldn't deny that, but he was unsteady on his feet. When there wasn't a woman, which was rare, he usually had to crawl to bed.

Then again, when there wasn't a woman, that usually meant he had gotten into trouble and was being punished, and that meant crawling to a pile of heaped up blankets and rags that masqueraded as his clothes. Iblis could be very petty with punishments. He'd gotten tired of living like an animal after a while. He couldn't escape without taking the woman of the week with him, and the last few had been found to displease Iblis long before he had even considered escape.

Samantha looked at him and then at the doorway leading to the quarters. "Can you help me? Or should I drag you? I can lift you but if you can't help, I might hurt you."

Smart, he thought suddenly. She reminded him of Dee and how Dee had tried to help him with things, without being condescending. "I can help…. But I can't get up without some lifting." She looked strong… but he didn't have enough coordination yet to prevent the pain of a hard fall.

"Ok," she said easily as she grabbed him firmly under the shoulders. He realized suddenly that she was wearing one of his outfits, cotton pants and a tunic, and wondered about that as she lifted him to his feet. The women almost always preferred dresses and skirts. Still, he wasn't sure he minded that as she carefully raised him up and helped him take hesitant shaky steps to the couch. He sank into it gratefully and closed his eyes for a moment. The couch was soft and warm feeling and even though he knew he needed to apologize to Samantha for the bruise on her face that he faintly recalled putting there, he just… wanted to relax. It had hurt like hell, it always hurt like hell, and it had been much more difficult to control the Goa'ald. Samantha had been bringing him water and he had…. Punched her in the face. Maybe. The Goa'ald had been very strong.

"Do you need to eat? Drink? I can make you something." Samantha said it quietly.

Sometimes it was harder when he liked them, when they were nice and trying hard to please him. "Maybe some tea. Don't be concerned… this wears off… I'm not hurt, it's like everything is so freshly healed and regrown, it just doesn't want to work right at first. There's a learning curve." He was probably being too articulate, but he wasn't in the mood to care.

"The sarcophagus regrows tissue but it doesn't have the muscle memory. You have to relearn things." She handed him a mug of hot tea and took a seat beside him. She picked up one of the sketchbooks he had left out and flipped it open to a sketch he had done from memory. Of a Raptor landing on the deck of the Galactica. Samantha looked at him. "You're not from Andelia, and this is not a Goa'uld ship."

"And you're not a trader's daughter from the far villages," he said nervously. Was it a trick, he wondered. That was new and unexpected for Iblis. "What do you want?"

* * *

Go easy, Sam told herself. If the last five days had taught her anything, it was that her companion Felix was lucky to not be raving insane, or catatonic. If the ceremony, as Iblis had called it, had been repeated as many times as she suspected, then Felix Gaeta had been stuck in an unbearable nightmare. Made worse by what she suspected, that he was not from the typical primitive off world society. "I want to help you."

He looked worriedly at her. "You want to escape, and you're smart enough to know it's going to be difficult. Where are you from? Not the colonies…"

And that was where she had to be careful. She didn't think for a minute that Felix liked Iblis or wanted to ingratiate himself but she wasn't so certain that the man couldn't be tempted. "I'm Tau'ri…. Do you know what that is?"

He blinked. "No. I'm Caprican." He looked at her. "And that means nothing to you, I can tell." He sighed. "Not that it matters… Caprica and all the colonies are so much radioactive dust. So how did you get stuck here?"

"We were investigating Iblis. We fight the Goa'uld." She hesitated. In some ways, Felix had a very sophisticated knowledge of the Goa'uld. He understood the issue of hosts, he understood that Iblis was really the parasite and not the host…. But she suspected that he knew only what he gleaned from the minds of the parasites. The political issues that concerned the system lords were not an issue to him. "We had heard about the destroyer of gods… I didn't expect to meet you… We assumed it was a weapon of some sort, not a person. But…. My people know I am here and they are working on a way out. I need your help… and I want you to come with us." Because she had more than a suspicion that Felix was more than he looked. The math on the walls represented ideas from physics that she had only considered, which meant Felix was highly educated in math, physics, and, she suspected, interstellar physics. She also suspected he had been in some sort of military. His bearing reminded her of her father.

"You might be able to get out," Felix said softly. He put his hand to his forehead as if it hurt. "I've never gotten out of the fortress. I know one of the women made it outside….but she was killed. Iblis considers me his path to becoming a system lord. He's not going to give me up easily. I don't think my quarters are monitored for sound, but they are watching us… the corridors are monitored. Just getting you out…. If there's help from the outside, maybe you can get out, but unless you have the Jaffa on your side, I'm not getting out."

Sam smiled. "Let me worry about the Jaffa."

* * *

"This armor is hot," Jack said. He tried to stretch. "What did Carter say?"

Daniel nodded. "She didn't have a lot of time but she said the plan would work but…. She wants to bring the prisoner with her. She says it's important."

Jack knew Sam wouldn't request that unless it really was important. At the same time, " It's going to be hard enough getting her out of there. We might have to carry the prisoner… he wasn't able to walk." Which didn't mean the poor bastard wasn't worth rescuing but it made things riskier.

"I talked to her briefly when I brought them food supplies. She didn't have a lot of time but she said he'd be up and about. She said he's the destroyer of gods… the sarcophagus affects his physiology differently." Daniel had that intent, interested look. "She said she was certain he was from a highly technical society. We could use that sort of advantage."

"I know…" Jack said softly. He'd had some minimal contact with Sam as well and she had said something similar. The issue was priorities. He didn't like the idea of leaving some poor bastard behind to be tortured, but the truth was that they couldn't save everyone. "It's risky if he's not well. We'll try it though. Now lets move. Its only a matter of time before someone gets wise that we didn't transfer in."

He followed Daniel down the stone corridor. They were masquerading as Jaffa and Jack was worried that someone was eventually going to realize that their forehead tatoos weren't tatooed, just cleverly drawn on. It was fortunate that Iblis was more arrogant than he was smart and his Jaffa were isolated and cowed by their fear of him. If the security in the fortress over all wasn't lax, they'd have no chance of getting Sam out. The area surrounding the cell like quarters of the destroyer of gods was probably the only area where security was tight. So tight that he and Daniel were masquerading as Jaffa. But then, he had to allow that their security procedures had the prisoners effectively controlled. The head guard had explained in detail how the male prisoner had made increasingly inventive attempts to escape, to assist the various females in escape, or to harm himself, and how that had led to some of the more extreme procedures. The man they had pulled out of the sarcophagus had been floppy dead weight for the most part, pale and sweaty as though he hurt… Which meant something was going on since Jack's own rare experience in the damn things always left him feeling unnaturally vigorous and energetic.

"He better be able to walk," he muttered to Daniel. They saluted to the watch guard and went to the chest where the prisoner's chains were held. He didn't like it, but it would attract too much attention if the prisoner was escorted without chains. Then they walked over to the barred cell. Jack kept his eye on the remaining Jaffa, sparing only a glance or two at Sam and the prisoner. The man looked better, standing at least but…. "For god's sake put some shoes on."

"I don't have shoes," the young man said softly as he helped Sam click the shackles on his wrists. "I'm not allowed to have shoes or socks, because having them make it easier for me to escape. And it will draw attention if I wrap my feet in anything."

It made sense. It also meant that Jack would need to be right beside the fellow when the running started. He opened the cell door and grabbed the man by the arm. "You're with me. If this goes according to plan, in about ten minutes, we're going to be off this planet."

The man nodded. "Just… if it doesn't go according to plan… please don't leave me here alive."

And wasn't that a commentary about life among the Goa'uld, Jack thought angrily. "Don't worry, kid. Now, let's get moving."

* * *

Felix had always considered his name a joke bestowed on him by social workers at the orphanage who tended to amuse themselves with cruel jokes at the expense of the children. The reality was that if something bad was going to happen, it always seemed to happen to him. That was why he couldn't quite believe how easy it was to get out of the fortress. Having the Jaffa assist him was something he had never considered, although Samantha had made sure to insist her friends weren't really Jaffa. They didn't seem like Jaffa, they seemed like professional military people and he wasn't sure what to make of that but he was beyond caring.

He took deep gulping breathes of the fresh night air and struggled to keep on his feet. The gravel stung his feet and he was wheezing like he hadn't run in years. He hadn't, of course. One of Iblis's control methods was not giving him space to exercise. He slipped and felt a strong arm grab him up.

"Don't stop now," the grey haired man shouted. "We're almost there." Felix coughed and wheezed in response but kept moving and tried to keep his eyes on the ring and not on the wailing sirens. There was a large black skinned Jaffa who was opening the gate. Felix had only seen it once before but it was embedded in his mind. As they ran, the gate generated the wormhole, and he stumbled as it began to glow like a silvery screen.

His companion lifted him off his feet and literally threw him at the watery center. It wasn't wet though, it was ice cold, a psychedelic swirl that seemed forever and instantaneous at the same time. Suddenly he was tumbling out onto a ridged metal ramp that felt for all the world like a ship deck. It even had the faint hum of electricity, he could feel it. He also heard the click of weapons readying and looked up just to see a rifle pointing at him.

"You're not SG-1," the armed, uniformed man said. Felix tried to speak but all he could do was wheeze in shock and hope that the others were following.

And as he had the thought, he could feel thumping heavy steps, of booted feet landing on metal. "Close the Iris!"

That was Samantha, Felix thought with relief as he tried to catch his breath. He felt hands grab him under his shoulders lift him to his feet. He found himself face to face with a Jaffa, a real Jaffa, he could tell, the black skinned one that had opened the gate. "You are safe here," the Jaffa said, his voice a low rumble. "The Tau'ri are the enemy of the Goa'uld." The Jaffa looked him over and turned to the grey hair pretend Jaffa and Samantha. "Major Carter, Colonel O'Neill, our companion is injured."

Felix looked down and could see blood on the metal ramp. His feet suddenly felt raw but he didn't care, not really. "It's not bad… I'm all right. Where… where am I?"

Samantha came up and put her arm around him. "This is Stargate Command. I know it's hard to believe but you're safe here. There's a doctor and you really need to get checked out."

"Yes, he does need to be checked out," sounded a new, stern voice. Felix fought the urge to jump as a uniformed man strode into the large room. Someone important, he realized as the armed soldiers and even his new found companions straightened up. The bald older man had the bearing of command. He eyed Felix and then looked at the grey haired man. "Jack, I thought we talked about this sort of thing."

Jack threw up his hands. "You know sir, this one is all on Major Carter's head." He said it good naturedly but Felix had the impression that his presence was an issue. Despite himself, he found his hands were shaking and he tried to stop it.

Samantha, Major Carter, Felix corrected himself, stepped forward. "General Hammond, this is Felix Gaeta who was being held prisoner on Andelia by the Goa'uld System Lord Iblis. I can give you a full debriefing…."

Hammond cut her off as he looked over Felix with a knowing eye. Felix reflexively drew himself to the position of attention. Hammond smiled wryly. "Yes, Maj. Carter, I expect a debriefing but clearly Mr. Gaeta here needs to be examined. Take him to Dr. Frasier and then I want all of you to see me."

TBC……


	2. The Tau'ri

**In Lord Iblis's Secret Service**

Part: 2

Rating: PG, maybe be PG-13 later on

paring: ensemble cast

Summary: Sometimes when everything goes bad in your life, it gets better in the weirdest way possible. Kind of a play on RDM's "everyone gets what they want in the worst possible way" comment.

Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and its characters are creations of Glen Larson and copywrited by Universal Studios. Stargate and its characters are creations of MGM. We make no money off this.

_**The Tau'ri**_

Another stray from some primitive world, Janet Frasier thought with a sigh as she looked at the shaking young man that was standing by the MRI scanner. He was probably frightened by the guard, the electricity, and all of the things he'd never seen before. She understood the tendency to pick up strays, she had a twelve year old from a destroyed world as her adopted daughter, but the older strays brought to Earth didn't adapt well.

The older ones were usually grateful at first but they had problems. With literacy, with not fighting or stealing, or solving a problem by clubbing an enemy. She hadn't gotten the back story on the new one, just a name and the whispered comment from Sam that the man had been tortured by the Goa'uld.

He looked pale and scared, but she didn't see much damage beyond the cuts on his feet. Still, it wasn't something Sam would say lightly, and she didn't want to make anything worse. "Ok… Felix… We have do a little test. And then… "

He glanced at the machine. "That's an MRI machine. You want to make sure that there isn't a Goa'uld inside me."

She blinked in surprise. "All right. Why don't you hop on the rack, and I'll slide you in. Have you had an MRI before?" That he knew what it was surprised her.

"A long time ago….I think…" He limped over and got on the sliding rack. "It's a little claustrophobic….." And his shaking didn't stop but she could see that he was trying to be still. Which helped make the scan go quicker since she didn't need the guard to help her administer a sedative.

"Everything looks clear," she said after a moment. In fact he looked remarkably well, almost too well internally considering how sickly he looked. But then that could be attributed to shock. The guard nodded and left. The protocol was to keep a guard in place until it was confirmed that a newcomer didn't have a Goa'uld inside them. She took a better look at Felix's feet as she pulled the rack out of the MRI. "The cuts are superficial but feet are sensitive so I can't imagine it feels that great. And your ankle is swelling, a sprain since I don't see any breaks on the scan but that means you're not walking back to the exam room." She hadn't liked how wheezy and out of breath he had been sounding earlier. Fear could do that, but so could underlying health issues that an MRI didn't pick up. She turned to her assistant who was hovering in the doorway. " Let's get a wheelchair."

Felix made a face but didn't protest, which only further indicated that he wasn't a typical stray from off planet. He'd also been seriously injured at some point, if she was reading his body language correctly. Injured enough to know how to get into the wheelchair without jiggling his feet much, but the shaking was putting him off balance.

"I'm going to examine you," she said as she helped him onto the exam bed. "But I think you've done this before, am I right?"

He nodded.

"Good. You were wheezing and breathing with difficulty when you came out of the gate. Is that a health issue? Or are you just not a runner?" She was thinking asthma or fear but while the scan looked clean, that didn't preclude a problem.

If anything his hands seemed to shake more and his olive skin took on a grayish caste. "There.. There was never room to exercise… and before… I had just gotten to where I could jog with the prosthetic…." He wiggled his toes. "I was shot in my right shin and… there wasn't anything that could be done. It was amputated… and then in the sarcophagus… it grew back…. I think…." He visibly shook. "I felt it grow back and it hurt so much… but… before I was captured by Iblis… I hadn't been getting much exercise and Iblis never let me out of my cell without chains and people holding me."

"All right…" Good lord what happened to this man, she wondered. "Look, Felix, you're in shock." She raised up the adjustable exam bed so he could lean back and still sit up. "I'm going to get your feet bandaged and get some ice for your ankle, and my assistant is going to get you something hot to drink… And I want to give you an IV that'll have some nutrients and glucose, and a mild sedative."

He looked at her suspiciously, and the shaking increased. "What kind of sedative?"

"You might go to sleep, but it will let you calm down, and I think you're at a point where you need some help." She didn't want to force him, although she would if it came to it. After a long moment though he nodded and let himself lie back on the bed.

* * *

"This is Linear A," Daniel said excitedly as he flipped through one of the notebooks Sam had brought with her. "He writes in Linear A, and Linear B."

Hammond looked through a sketchbook. "Uniforms… people in uniform with very modern looking weapons and he braced himself like an officer…. He's military of some sort." He looked at Sam.

"I don't know for certain," Sam said easily. "He was afraid of telling me a lot. He didn't want to help Iblis or lead Iblis to his people. Once I told him that I had outside help, he suggested we not discuss anything but necessary details."

"Makes me think military," Jack said, "Of some sort."

"I think so. He said he was from Caprica. One of the twelve colonies of Kobol. He called the Linear A Kobolian, and the Linear B Old Caprican… said he learned it in school." She had recognized the script herself but she had not pressed him.

"In Persian, Kobol means heaven." Daniel said after a moment.

"There… is a story," Teal'c said quietly, "Of an event that took place on Earth when the Goa'uld were asserting control. That some of the gods took chosen followers to Kobol to live among them. That it was allowed because the Goa'uld took…. The unacceptable hosts as their breeding stock. Considering what you witnessed with the Goa'uld, Major Carter…perhaps this man represents that population of humans?"

"If he's human," Jack said after a moment. He looked at the group of people at the briefing table. "Look, we have to consider that possibility. He has a much different reaction to the sarcophagus technology. He looked like it hurt."

"He said it was very painful," Sam said. She wanted to make sure that was clear. Because it was a very different reaction to the sarcophagus. "He told me that he could feel the healing take place. Usually when Iblis used him to… execute a fellow Goa'uld, the dying Goa'uld would try to cause as much damage as possible. He looked dead when they took him from the cell. And I don't think he has any real understanding of the time that has passed."

"Constant use of the sarcophagus effects aging," Daniel said knowingly. "But just being able to translate Linear A and B makes him useful

"I think he'll be useful to Stargate Command for other reasons." Sam flipped the notebook to the equations she had copied from the walls of the cell. "Between the pictures, and the high level physics and math equations, I think he's got a background in space travel."

"He was afraid to tell you about his background," said a new voice. Janet Fraser stepped into the room, holding a chart and looking concerned. "But he does have a background in space. That was pretty much where he lived before he came across the Goa'uld. He thinks we're in a space ship because it reminds him of where he used to live. He's also aware of medical technology that isn't defined by a System Lord doing magic. So be assured, he is not primitive."

"So he's potentially very useful," Hammond said, his tone concerned. "But… if he killed Lilith, that was ten years ago."

"He's aware that there's been a passage of time," Sam said worriedly. She glanced at Janet. She needed to know it if Felix hadn't told her. "He doesn't know how long it's been but he is aware that he hasn't been aging. Because of the sarcophagus use."

"Wait… He was locked up in a cell with the Goa'uld using his body as a form of execution for ten years?" Janet looked at her, incredulous. "And we're discussing how useful he might be? That's really premature. That man may be from a technological society but he's also in shock. And there may be some underlying trauma. I gave him a sedative so he could rest but I did talk to him. According to the MRI, he's physically fine, some superficial cuts on his feet and a sprained ankle. But while he appears to have decent muscle tone and reactions, he's got the fitness of someone who hasn't had a chance to use his body for much at all, and who periodically has his body torn to shreds and regrown by Goa'uld tech. Including his right leg, which apparently had previously been amputated due to a gunshot wound. He's going to need some therapy, physical and mental, before he's useful."

Hammond nodded. "I think this is a case where we'll get a better pay off if we move slowly. We need to debrief him, Dr. Frasier, but your point is well taken. We'll need to quarantine him here in SGC anyway, but…" Hammond looked at one of the intricate drawings that showed several sleek fighter craft in a dog fight in an asteroid field, "I have a feeling your stray might be a gold mine of information if we treat him right, Maj. Carter."

"Good," she said, meaning it. "Because I have a feeling that Felix hasn't been treated well in a long time. For what it's worth, he seems like a decent person. When I first broached the idea of escape, he suggested that I go without him because I'd have a better chance."

"So," Jack said, breaking the sudden silence, "slow and easy wins the race. Let's let him get some sleep, some food, and see that we're what we say we are. Then we'll see if he can show us how these little fighter ships work." He took the drawing from Hammond. "You have to admit, that does look cool."

* * *

Slow and easy, Jack thought as he strode through the corridors of Stargate Command. He looked down at the duffle bag. He had guessed at sizes, but he assumed that Felix Gaeta would likely be happy enough to have something other than Goa'uld rags to wear. They would need to outfit the man more thoroughly and more appropriately, but for now, some Air Force battle and pt issue would do. He had added some toiletries, the sort of things people needed. His plan was to take the man to breakfast and explain some of the realities to him.

The truth was that taking in strays from other worlds was becoming problematic. The more primitive sorts ended up dispersed to the Alpha and Beta sites. If Sam was correct, and a glance at the math she had copied told him that Sam *was* correct, then the man in their sickbay just might have the knowledge of higher technology than what Earth currently possessed. They needed the technical know how. At the same time, they had to get an idea of who they were dealing with.

Jack didn't get a bad feeling off the man. That counted for a lot. Sam liked him as well, and that also counted for a lot. So it was possible that the man would work out. But Janet had a point about the trauma issues. He wanted to get a read on Gaeta, and see just how workable or unworkable he would be.

Janet was drawing blood from Gaeta's arm when he walked into the infirmary. Gaeta looked… better. He did, Jack realized, look like a man who hadn't seen sunlight in years. Still, the shaking had left him and Janet gave Jack the look that said it was ok for him to be there.

"All right," he said cheerfully. "Has Dr. Fraser fed you yet? If not, then I'll take you for some chow." He set the duffle bag down on the bed and opened it. " I thought you might want some clothes and… " He held up a pair of sneakers. "Here at Stargate Command, you're allowed to have shoes. And socks."

Gaeta smiled slightly. "Thanks. You're… Col. O'Neill?"

"Jack O'Neill," Jack said as he held out his hand. "Sam said your name is Felix Gaeta. Are you hungry, Felix?"

Gaeta looked nervously at Janet, who nodded. "A little…I thought I was quarantined."

"You are," Janet said. "But that means you can't leave Stargate Command, not that you can't leave sickbay. Colonel O'Neill knows where you can and can't go. And there's no reason you can't go to the cafeteria." To Jack she said, " He doesn't have any of the typical issues we have with people off world."

"I don't have lice," Gaeta added helpfully. "And I know how to use a toilet."

"You'll fit right in then," Janet said, her tone amused. Jack got the sense that they had already shared jokes on the topic. He wasn't surprised. Janet was generally a good sport but she was usually the one stuck delousing and toilet training the off worlders who hadn't been exposed. "You'll want to change, so we'll let you get dressed. Try to stay off your feet, and you can wear the shoes but don't tie the right foot. Your ankle is still too swelled. And you're using a wheelchair. Your reflexes are all screwed up."

"It gets better if I walk," Gaeta protested.

"I had to stitch your feet up, and your ankle is sprained, and you're unsteady. No walking until I say." Janet eyed him, and Jack was amused to see Gaeta nod. Janet grabbed Jack by the arm and led him to the door. "We'll let you get changed."

"How is he doing?" To Jack's eyes, he seemed to be doing better but Janet's warnings concerned him.

"He should be fine physically," Janet said quickly to reassure him. "But his reflexes are off, and he needs some physical therapy to deal with coordination and strength issues. The last thing we need is for him to trip over his feet and break something. I'm being cautious. If his feet weren't covered with superficial but deep cuts, and if his ankle wasn't swelled, I'd let him walk. It's not going to hurt him to keep him quiet for a few days. I'm already working on a therapy schedule. You're taking him to the cafeteria?"

"Unless you think IHOP would be more fun," Jack said easily.

"Be careful to let him set the pace. He seems all right here, but I doubt he's been around a lot of people in a setting where he wasn't in chains in a long time. If he seems upset, try to get him isolated. I think he'll be all right, but be careful." She looked at him intently. "I get the impression that his dignity is important to him. If he has a collapse in public because he hasn't been around people in years, it would a psychological set back and he's trying very hard but I think he's fragile. Be careful, Jack."

She meant it. That made his words easier. "Don't worry. If he can handle it, I am going to talk about the Stargate but if he seems stressed… I'm just going to get him a donut. Maybe jelly filled. Don't worry."

The door to the small patient room opened. Gaeta was standing there, neatly dressed in the camouflage pants and brown t-shirt Jack had brought. With the short hair and the stiff posture, Jack found himself mentally agreeing with Hammond. Gaeta was military of some sort. Looking at the young man in Air Force battle dress, he had no doubt that Felix Gaeta had worn a uniform before.

* * *

He didn't like wheelchairs. He understood why Dr. Fraser was insisting, but he didn't like it, even though Col. O'Neill was quick to point out how he looked like a soldier on "profile". Being on profile meant one was sick and not expected to be up for a fight. He understood the concept if not the term but… He had learned from hard experience that people who wallowed in injury ended up in hard places. He had fought to stay active, and deep down he knew that part of why he had kept his job in the CIC and as the Admiral's scientific researcher was because there was no one capable with two legs to replace him.

But the truth was that his feet stung and his ankle hurt like hell and he suspected that Dr. Fraser was trying to avoid forcing him to be still. He didn't want to make her mad by insisting. She had been very kind.

And he wanted to see their ship. The Tau'ri, as they called themselves, seemed pleasant. Kind. Even General Hammond, who had seemed angry, had been kind. And O'Neill seemed to be the chatty sort.

"And here's the cafeteria," O'Neill said jovially. It seemed quiet for a cafeteria, but Felix could see the tell tale signs of early morning shift. People looked sleepy and were mostly holding cups. Cups of beverage that smelled suspiciously like….

"Is… is that coffee?" He tried not to drool. He hadn't had coffee, real coffee since the Cloud Nine had exploded with the last of the coffee.

"Kona Blend," O'Neill said. He moved the chair to the beverage rack and grabbed trays, handing one to Felix. "I'm guessing you'd like a cup. You like cream and sugar?"

"You have cream and sugar?" He said it without thinking. The Tau'ri looked well supplied if the heaped racks of food and inviting smells said anything. It had just been so long since food had tasted good. The food, such as it was, on the Galactica had been algae paste with rare vegatables. Iblis had always insisted he have food, but it was usually bland food. There was never seasoning or even real care taken, just food that had been carefully calculated to keep him healthy from a medical standpoint. And that was at best. There had been so many times, after escape attempts, where meals had been specially formulated tasteless gruel. That he had to eat or be beaten. And if the damage from the beating was severe, then he went to the sarcophagus. He shuddered.

"You sound like you want both," O'Neill said easily. He set a steaming mug on Gaeta's tray. "We have hot and cold food. I'd like some eggs. You like eggs? Chicken eggs? We have cereal and pancakes and waffles."

Again his mouth watered. "I like eggs." He hadn't had a real egg since New Caprica. And that had been some sort of turtle egg. Chicken eggs…. that had been his last leave on Caprica..

"All right then, we need the grill." O'Neill wheeled him over to the cooking area. A large, older looking black skinned woman was there, almost blue black in color, which was very rare in the colonies. She smiled at both of them.

"Y'all need breakfast, suh?" the cook asked pleasantly. Her drawl was almost incomprehensible but she smiled pleasantly at Gaeta. "I 'spect you want your regular, but what can I get your friend?"

"How do you like your eggs, Felix?" O'Neill asked.

"Over… over easy." The woman looked at O'Neill and then at him. Then she winked.

"Two eggs, over easy… on toast if I don't miss my guess. Lil bacon and homefries on the side… you're too skinny. Col. O'Neill, y'all need to feed these boys better. Is that coffee? Get that boy some orange juice. No wonder the poor boy is laid up." Her accent made it sound like 'po'. She smiled down at Felix. "Don't you worry, son. I'll make sure you get a proper breakfast." She made a shooing gesture at O'Neill, her tone and expression becoming harsher. "Now you go on and sit down and I'll bring you something….if you're lucky."

O'Neill seemed amused. There was no real malice coming from the cook, Gaeta knew it was a show. Possibly being put on intentionally, but just as likely that O'Neill was friends with the cook and that they played with each other by joking. O'Neill seemed popular as well, several of the sleepy looking people nodded and waved. He parked the wheelchair at an empty table and held up his hand. "Just a sec," he said and then he trotted back over to the serving area, returning in seconds holding two glasses of orange beverage. "Marietta will be livid if she doesn't see orange juice on the table." He set the glass down in front of Felix.

Felix sipped his coffee, savoring the rich taste. He wasn't so sure about the juice. "It's… orange…"

O'Neill looked at him quizzically. "It's made from oranges…."Suddenly his eyes lit up in amusement. "Oranges are a fruit. They're orange colored…. It's good for you." O'Neill looked him over. "You know we don't intend to harm you. The quarantine… that's more for you. Goa'uld and Jaffa can't get sick. You spent a long time with them…. Your immune system needs to ease into things."

"I don't know how long it's been… but it was a while. At least five years." And O'Neill was nodding to that, which was more confirmation than Felix had ever gotten. The talk about immunity and illness made sense too.

O'Neill looked him over. "You're not a prisoner here. Normally, with someone kidnapped by the Goa'uld, we'd get you back where you came from, but Sam didn't recognize the name of your home world…. There's a lot of places we haven't been to. It wouldn't be considered a mission priority but we could at least look."

Felix shrugged and sipped his coffee. They were fairly isolated, and it was a military ship, that was obvious, but he assumed O'Neill would prefer discretion. "It's good of you to offer, but there's no point in looking. Caprica was destroyed and anyone that survived the initial attack would be dead by now. From the radiation." Not to mention the harsh reality of the Gate, as the Tau'ri called it. He was millions of miles away from where he started and he had a suspicion that it had been more than five years.

O'Neill nodded, his expression not changing except for a certain sadness coming to his eyes. "Goa'uld? Iblis attacked your world?"

"No… we had other enemies. I… didn't have any idea that the Goa'uld existed. Not beyond stories." Very old stories at that, from the religious books that even the priests didn't take seriously.

It was then that the cook came over with heaping plates of food. "Now you just let me know if you need anything," the woman said kindly, giving his shoulder a friendly squeeze. She pointedly gestured to the glass. "And drink that, it's good for you."

"Thank you," he said gratefully, looking at the plate of food that smelled so enticing. He was careful not to just leap on the eggs. Show respect for good food, one of his foster mothers had always said, by taking your time and savoring. It was hard to resist though, everything was tasty, even the toast that was made from some sort of grain he'd never had. It went marvelously with the liquidy egg yokes though.

"You're one of them," O'Neill said with a laugh as he watched Felix eat. "Using the toast as a sponge… My son did that."

"You have a son?" Felix asked, between a mouthful of deliciously salty bacon.

"I did," O'Neill said after a moment.

He understood what that meant. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you," O'Neill said after a moment. He gestured to the plate. "It's good you're taking it slow. Dr. Fraser will kill me if you eat too fast and get sick. Once you're done, you and I and a few other people, including General Hammond, are going to talk about what was going on with Iblis. That'll probably take a few days. After that, we'll need to figure out what to do with you."

Felix wasn't sure what to make of that.

* * *

"No, that's not anything important," Felix said, trying not to sound cross. The Tau'ri were being nice, he reminded himself, and he was their guest. They weren't hitting him or torturing him, and their doctor had checked in on the debriefing periodically to make sure he wasn't tired. He was tired, but he wanted to answer their questions. He wanted to trust them, and deep down, he suspected that he didn't have a choice. Most of their questions had been about Iblis, and they had been very free about discussing their own plans in front of him. He got the impression just from their comments that their own forces weren't abundant. And that they had a lot of problems with the Goa'uld. But Dr. Jackson was holding up one of his journals that Sam had brought and he didn't understand why Dr. Jackson found it important. " That's just…" He looked at it more closely. "I got bored and wrote down what I remembered of the Holocaust and Exodus…. The destruction of my homeworld and how we ran… I was just…" Bored and depressed and consumed with the idea that he was the only one left alive, or worse that he was dead and being punished in Tartarus. " I just needed something to do, so I wrote down our history and I used Kobolian because I wanted to see if I could still do it."

He had always been good at languages. Kobolian and Old Caprican were temple languages mostly and he had, as a teenager, liked being able to argue religion by citing obscure texts that weren't always translated.

Jackson seemed both awed and bemused. "Let me show you something." He opened a book and pointed to one of the pictures. "What does that say?"

Felix looked at the picture. It was clearly a clay tablet, primitive and old, the sort of thing scholars liked for the art of it all. "It's a list. One hundred sheep from the province of Nir Aton…. Three hundred…. Something of wheat from Nir Betal… A tax list…"

It was hard to understand why Jackson looked so elated.

"Will you stop?" O'Neill said, making a point of taking the book away from Felix and sliding it back to Jackson.

"It's interesting," Hammond conceded gruffly. Felix realized suddenly that Hammond and O'Neill, and Sam for that matter, were all very interested in how he had read the list off the picture of the clay tablet, but were more interested in other topics. Hammond in particular seemed mostly interested in the pictures he had drawn of the Galactica. The older man showed him a picture he had drawn of a Raptor being worked on. "Frankly, Mr. Gaeta, I'd liked to know what you used to do for a living. Before Iblis captured you."

Felix decided to go for broke. It wasn't as though there was anything left to lose. "I didn't tell Major Carter, because what I knew of the Goa'uld…. Their technology is different from my people's and I was afraid Iblis would try to get it from me. I was a fleet military officer of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. I was the fleet tactical officer and navigator and I was the head of research." Mostly because he had been crippled, but that stung too much to mention, particularly considering how it had been that role that ultimately had led to his capture by Iblis.

Hammond eyed him shrewdly. "You're pretty easy about telling us that. For a military man."

A test. "It's been at least five years, probably longer, since I was with the colonial fleet. I have no idea where they are or where this ship is in relation to the fleet of my people and the gate you have means the distance involved may be even greater. If you decided to torture me, there's nothing I could tell you that isn't basic knowledge for my people, hopelessly out of date intelligence about my people, or knowledge of Lord Iblis that I see no reason not to tell you. I've actually had Goa'uld parasites inside of me, trying to find out where my people where, just so they could beg Iblis to spare them and they never discovered that I was anything but some poor native shepherd." He shrugged. "I'm not telling you anything that would harm my people." And Hammond looked like a hard man, as hard as Bill Adama in in the right setting, but he didn't think Hammond was harder than a desperate Goa'uld seeking a bargaining chip to trade for it's life.

After a moment, Hammond smiled slightly. "You might be underestimating me, son."

"Possibly, sir." He didn't think so, but he wasn't going to say it. It was rude, and argumentative, and he didn't really want to test the man. He knew how hard he could be pushed. Hammond wasn't likely to push hard enough. Not after the Cylons, and the Goa'uld. Not after his leg. "But I also have to look at the reality that you did rescue me, and you're asking me things, you're not demanding, and you don't like the Goa'uld. I don't like the Goa'uld and if you're against them… The least I can do is help you." He hesitated. He didn't want to sound ungrateful. "I don't have anywhere to go. My people were running… and it's been years and…." He hadn't really thought about it until just then. "They probably would be very suspicious of me. Because I haven't aged… "

And because he had regrown a leg. An icy chill went down his spine as he considered it. He could see on the faces of the Tau'ri that it had been more than five years, he had suspected it as well, and his two legs on top of that would mark him as a Cylon. And that was if the fleet could be found.

Hammond was quiet for just a moment. "Your people were running. From what?"

"The Cylons… intelligent robots… We created them about twenty years before I was born. They evolved into a sentient race. Some of the pictures I drew… those are Cylon ships. They got into our defense network and dropped our defenses. The ship I was on was being retired that day so we never installed the tainted software. We were lucky we were able to jump away."

O'Neill's eyes brightened. "Jump?"

"You know… FTL jump." Felix waited until it was obvious that he needed to explain. "Faster than light jumps… You know… Moving a ship through space by creating a fold in space?"

O'Neill shrugged nonchalantly. "Of course we've *heard* of it…. But we're using Goa'uld designs."

"Do you know how faster than light travel works?" Sam asked excitedly. She opened another one of his notebooks. He hadn't even realized that she had packed them, that was the truth, and she was gesturing to the mathematical route calculations he had made on the walls of his cell. She pointed to the calculations. "Does this have anything to do with it? I can tell you were working with interstellar astrogation but I couldn't make sense of it."

Which meant they were really deficient in higher level physics because he knew that Sam was very bright. "It sort of does… I was just playing. After everything was destroyed, my people went a little crazy with religion, and signs and looking for places from the scripture. Mythic places…This is the route to Earth."

Sam looked at him and then at O'Neill. "Felix…" she said gently. "This is Earth. We're from Earth."

Another icy chill went down his spine and he felt suddenly lightheaded. "But this is a ship… you said you were from Tau'ri…."

At first she seemed amused, they all seemed amused. Then they all seemed to sober up, especially with Hammond eying them darkly. His expression softened as he turned his gaze to Felix. "Son… this isn't a ship. This is a base deep underground on our home world. And our home world is Earth."

"Tau'ri is what most Goa'ld visited worlds know Earth as," Jackson added.

"But… Earth is…" A myth, a story, the fleet's destination only because there was no place else to go. "It's where the 13th colony went… a myth." And if he was on Earth, then his people were incredibly far away.

* * *

"I don't believe you. I don't believe any of you."

"Felix, I know it's hard to accept--"

"What, that I'm on Earth?" he asked with sarcasm. "Why should I believe you? It's been at least five frakking long _years_!" he emphasized the last word. Suddenly it was if the dam broke and he let out a sob while burying his face in his hands.

Janet looked at him in pity. She really wanted Cassie to be here, she understood what this lonely individual was going through. After pondering her thoughts for a moment she pulled his hands away from his face. "If you don't believe me, then I want you to come with me."

"Where?" Felix looked around quickly, not quite sure what she was doing.

"First you need to put this on." She handed him what looked like a uniform jacket he used to have back on the _Galactica_. It was the one that they would normally wear while working out, or not on duty. At least it was the same color. "I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

Felix didn't even bother to watch her leave, he just kept his attention on the material clenched in his hands. He jumped at the sound of the door closing. A stark reminder that told him he wasn't on a ship anymore and that Sam and the others were telling him what they thought was the truth. He slowly pulled on the light-weight jacket and reached down to tie his shoes. Just as he was finishing, the door opened once again. Felix was surprised to see Dr. Frazier in a dark blue uniform that was completely different from what he used to wear while on duty. He stared at it for a moment, wondering if he did die when he went through that ring. If so, this wasn't what he was expecting.

He slid off the table and asked as he followed her out of. . ._sickbay_, he reminded himself, "Are you sure you can do this? What about the quarantine?"

"I'm the CMO," she answered as if that was all that was needed. When they turned a corner, she pulled out a card and did something which let the door open up. She stepped inside then beckoned him to come. "It's an elevator. Don't worry. See, we're at least 20 stories underground."

"_Underground?_" It was hard to comprehend the thought. He remembered the bases he had been stationed at before the Holocaust. This was completely different. Maybe this is normal? "Why… why are we underground?"

"It's the only way we could keep the Ring safe," she answered as she watched the numbers quickly crawl down to zero. When the door opened she ushered him around the corner while nodding to the soldier behind the desk and into another elevator. The base was huge, Felix realized, and Stargate Command seemed to be a small part of a much larger complex. When that one finally stopped she lead him through a set of solid steel doors and into an area that held lots of odd looking vehicles, at least he thought they were vehicles. "I'm taking you out to the outside car park. This is my car. Get in."

She unrolled the windows as soon as they exited the long massive cavern and went out into the sunlight. Felix blinked nervously. From all the years he had spent in space, he forgot what air smelled like, or how rich the colors were. Even when he was imprisoned by Iblis, he never went outside. Nothing prepared him for what he saw when they exited the tunnel. It was like a rainbow had been splashed in and around him as he looked at the small parking lot.

"It's not much," Janet said softly "but it is Earth. We're in an area called Colorado."

Off in the distance he could see gray silhouetted mountains and felt guilt. Guilt that he was the only one that would ever see this wondrous sight. Everyone in the fleet could be dead and they would never know that Earth was real. I'm the only one, he thought. Without a warning panic flared up. All he knew was that he had to get out of there and he started stiffening up, his mind swirling with fear.

"Felix?" Janet said, concern lacing her voice. Dammit, she thought, I should have known. It's too much, too fast. Before it could grow worse, she drove him back and quickly took him down towards sickbay. "It's all right," she murmured softly while making sure she kept her hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, everything's going to be all right."

Once the doors opened again, she almost had to drag him around the corner and back into sickbay. He collapsed onto one of the stretchers as she went over to the medical cabinet and pulled out a syringe. Making quick work she had it prepared and gave it to Felix before he got any worse.

"Damn," she muttered as she shook her head. If only they had held off and went with him thinking he was on a ship, then she wouldn't have had to show him the truth. Or if at least they had tried to soften the blow when it was presented. No, she decided as she looked at him, it was probably for the best. He was going to need to deal with it eventually and it was best to be honest now instead of having him resent their perceived kindness later.

TBC…


	3. Good Luck

**In Lord Iblis's Secret Service**

Part: 3

Rating: PG, maybe be PG-13 later on

paring: ensemble cast

Summary: Sometimes when everything goes bad in your life, it gets better in the weirdest way possible. Kind of a play on RDM's "everyone gets what they want in the worst possible way" comment.

Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica and its characters are creations of Glen Larson and copywrited by Universal Studios. Stargate and its characters are creations of MGM. We make no money off this.

_**Good Luck**_

He tried to concentrate on the textbook and failed. His leg hurt. It was stupid and dumb and certainly in his head, but his lower right leg was burning. It had happened before. He knew the pain. It was the phantom leg cramping, nerves trying to react to a limb that was gone. He had been lucky, luckier than most of Dr. Cottle's patients. Singing worked as a distraction, and he knew he had been luckier than any number of people in the fleet.

Singing worked, and people liked his singing which meant when he was having a bad night he could just head down to the bar and sing. Not only did it help, but people thought he was coping. When it started happening in Iblis's fortress, despite his leg being there, regrown from the sarcophagus, he had just added it to the many other things that made him think he had lost his mind. There had been some fairly lengthy periods early on where he was certain he'd had a complete break with reality.

Then again, Felix thought as he took off his shoe and tried to massage the pain away, it wasn't as though reality hadn't taken a wild turn. He had regrown his leg, he had seen alien creatures enter his body, and worse he had felt them enter his body and rip control away from him. He had then been rescued by people from Earth. And now his regrown leg, that even had freckles where his old leg had them, was hurting with the phantom pain of the lost limb.

And he couldn't sing. He had been in the sick bay of the command center for seven days and the team that had rescued him had gone out and come back again and… The civilian scientist Daniel had died. He hadn't had more than a few conversations with Daniel, and those had mostly been talks about the religion of the Twelve Colonies and translation requests, but it was obvious that the man had been well liked.

The body had been removed hours earlier but people were going in and out. Daniel Jackson had obviously been well liked and people were very upset. No one was in the mood for a song. He had been indulged on the Galactica, partly because he had lost a limb, and partly because he had a better voice than even he had realized. Singing did make people feel better, he had learned that and more from the cancer patients who had spent a lot of their time encouraging him, despite their own pain, but he sensed that it would be misinterpreted. The pain of the people in the base was still too raw, and they clearly weren't used to losing people at all.

He tried a variation of a different therapy. Cottle had suggested mirror therapy, reflecting his good leg to trick his brain into letting the phantom leg unclench and relax. That hadn't worked well, but he had a real leg to work with. He leaned forward on the hospital bed and grabbed his right foot in a runner's stretch. "I can feel you," he said as he gripped his toes and stretched. "You're not on fire… I'm touching you…."

The worst of the pain eased off and he decided to get out of bed and put on his shoes. He had been very sick the last three days. Feverish and congested with something Dr. Fraser called influenza, and she had been more worried than he had thought was necessary. He felt better, and for a change, he felt hungry. Aside from his initial foray to the cafeteria, his meals had been brought to him, and he hadn't felt hungry anyway, with the fever. But there was a clock and with the excitement and tragedy, it had been almost twelve hours since anyone had brought him anything. He saw no reason to make a fuss about it. People were upset and they didn't need to feel worse.

Dr. Fraser was bent over her desk. She was crying and trying to fill out paperwork and he made sure to not disturb her as he slipped out. He felt bad for her. She seemed to be taking Dr. Jackson's death very hard. I'll bring her something, he thought.

He was lucky that the short order cook, Marietta, remembered him because for a long moment upon stepping into the large cafeteria, he was overwhelmed. It had been years since he had actually picked out a meal and he still wasn't sure what the etiquette was. Marietta, who had clearly been crying as well, took pity on him and after finding out that he was getting a meal for both himself and Dr. Fraser, took charge. She loaded up his tray with bowls of chicken noodle soup and bread and more of the orange juice that she swore by. Everyone needs to eat at a time like this, she had said as she added some cookies with dark brown specks onto his tray. He didn't protest any of her choices, she had brought his meals to him on at least one other occasion when he hadn't felt well enough to get out of bed.

He returned to the small medical area. Dr. Fraser hadn't moved, although she did wipe her eyes and stand up when she saw him enter. "Oh Felix, I'm sorry… we completely forgot about you being here…"

"It's all right… I understand." He held out the tray. "I thought you might want something… Marietta said you would like it."

"Thank you." She took the tray and set it on her desk, and then pulled a chair over for him. "I am sorry," she said again as she gestured for him to sit down.

"Things were really… hectic," he said hesitantly. "I liked ….I'm sorry he died." The man had been good to him, quick to ply him with questions about translations, but he had also been very nice about explaining some of the not so obvious customs and facts about Stargate Command. It had been Dr. Jackson who had brought him some history books about the United States and Earth history in general, and who had been quick to insist that other researchers leave him alone when he took ill.

"It's… difficult." Dr. Fraser stirred her soup pensively. "You know it's part of being in the military but… Daniel… was my friend."

"It's never easy," he said after a moment. He didn't exactly dive in to his meal, but he was hungry and the food at Stargate Command tasted incredibly fresh compared to the way he had been fed in captivity with the Goa'uld or to the meager, tasteless rations that the Galactica had.

Fraser watched him. "Do you know what you're eating?"

"Um…. Chicken noodle soup?" He looked down at it, suddenly worried. There were definitely some different foods on Earth, he already loved the orange juice and the round, rind covered fruit was delicious and different than anything he'd ever tasted, but chicken noodle soup wasn't new. Before everything had run out, the mess hall on the Galactica had made a good version. The SGC's version was delicious, with little pieces of celery, firm noodles and nicely sized chunks of chicken.

After a moment, Fraser grinned. "I'm sorry… I meant did you know what chicken noodle soup was, was it something you had on your home world, not that something was wrong with it."

"Oh." He looked down at the bowl. Suddenly it was funny. "Yes, we had chicken noodle soup on Caprica." A memory came to him. "We used to have chicken noodle soup for lunch every day at one of the children homes I lived at. That was a long three months." He grinned suddenly. "It was good training for life. I think I can eat just about anything."

"Fortunately you don't have to prove that," Fraser said as she sipped her soup. "You know, we know this has been a hard transition for you…"

He shrugged as he stirred his soup. "I guess, all things considered, that I am possibly the luckiest man who ever lived." It was something that he had thought about a lot in the last few days and he felt a real need to say it out loud. If only to distract Dr. Fraser, who seemed to be beating herself over a death he knew couldn't have been prevented. He could see that she wanted something other than the day's events to think about and.. He liked her.

And she was attractive and he hadn't felt that about a woman in a very long time. He wasn't fool enough to think it would go anywhere but…"I admit, for a really long time, I never considered myself very lucky…"

"Why not?" Janet asked, her expression suddenly curious. "I mean… aside from the obvious issue of being held and tortured by the Goa'uld for years?"

"That's part of it though." He took a deep breath. "It's like I have to have some really bad luck for my good luck to kick in. My biological parents weren't married, my mom gave me up as soon as I was born, and I went from foster home to foster home…And then I was adopted and that was really good luck because its hard to even get a foster home once you're not little and cute. I got assigned to the Galactica, and I thought that was bad luck… until it was the only warship to survive the Cylon attack on my home planet. Then I lost my leg over nothing and got dumped through a stargate on accident because someone bumped into me while I was examining it and got stuck for ten years being treated worse than a slave… but I think there's an upside here."

He hoped anyway. It felt right, but saying it out loud made him nervous.

Janet reached out and took his hand. "What kind of upside?"

Felix hesitated only for a moment. "It's like getting a do-over in pyramid." He wiggled his toes. "I have my leg back. It hurt, I can honestly say I would have preferred to not… fall into the gate and go through what I did, but it can't be undone. The downside is that it did happen, and its hard to even think about, I will probably always have nightmares, and I most likely will never see my own people again…. But, I am getting a do-over. I have my leg back, I haven't aged physically and I am on Earth. I get a chance to start over….it's a little intimidating… but also pretty lucky. Really lucky." He tried to smile. "Not everyone gets a second chance."

She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "I think you've earned your do over, Felix."

_finis_


End file.
